


Stubborn Love

by LadyPuck



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Did I mention spoilers?, Gen, Spoilers, spoilers for Thor 2: The Dark World
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-09
Packaged: 2018-01-01 00:54:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPuck/pseuds/LadyPuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki, Frigga, and choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stubborn Love

**Author's Note:**

> Unashamedly FIX-IT-FIX-IT-NOW fic. Spoilers. SPOILERS. Did I mention SPOILERS. Just a quick what-if that hung in my mind after seeing the new film today. Two parts.

**“Brother, you don't need to turn me away”**  ~ “Mykonos,” Fleet Foxes

 

If there was one person in the world Loki loved unconditionally, it was this queen dressed in flowing blue and crowned with delicate golden hair. It was this lady, gentle and fierce in turns, who had never turned away from him, even at the height of his madness.

                                                                                                                                                      _(and mad he had been,  was, would be)_

In his golden prison, her image stood in front of him, eyes devastated and yearning, seeing in him both her son and a criminal. Those eyes were enough to make him ache with regret and hot, sick rage. His sanity was broken and his morality, ever shaky, ground to dust, but there was something within him that fought the break in his soul, fought to remember the lessons he learned at Frigga’s knee.

                                                                                          _(magic and politics and the value of each life, each thread in the tapestry of life)_

It would be easy, in an impossible way, to give into her, beg forgiveness from the crown, pledge a binding vow to Odin, and leave this cage. But his mind, broken and sensitive, sang of a danger greater than any of Asgard could imagine. His senses and instinct kept him in his box, in the view of the criminals Thor and his cronies dragged in from the Nine Realms.

_(besides, if he gave in now, to apology and forgiveness, he would inevitably be tasked to aid Thor in his peace-keeping mission – a tedious and dirty business best suited to underlings)_

Instead, he sat and gathered power, trapping each tendril of magic that came near enough to him. He seeped energy from his very prison, slowly making the walls as fragile as the shell of an egg, until a tap of his finger could destroy them. And he cast his magical sight into the city, watching, waiting, watching, waiting… All the while she sent him books he did not read and gifted him with her presence, speaking to him of her days and the happenings of the city and any number of things to keep his ready mind sharp and entertained. He played the part of the insolent, bored, unrepentant son, all the while keeping careful watch over her especially.

_(there had been a time, before ice and betrayal, when Heimdall had proudly taught him to cast his sight into the worlds and truly, completely see. that time had passed but the magic had never been forgotten)_

And then there was a force that stank of evil in the palace and it was time to prepare. He left an illusion in his place and walked from his prison in the guise of a petty guard, standing just out of the sight of his one-time family, watching the dark power undulate beneath the skin of his brother’s lover. It made his stomach churn—this was no conquering power, for a conqueror defeated in order to rule. This was a force for destruction and destruction alone and it was terribly familiar.

_(it tasted of the madness that had taken his mind when his hand had first turned icy blue. it tasted of the fury and the hate and the overpowering thirst for annihilation that had gripped him. but that was something to dwell on later)_

Unseen, he flitted from Thor, to Odin, to the human, and, most often, to Frigga. And when the ships came crashing through to the city, his pace picked up until he was only in one location for a few seconds, casting spells for structure, and aid, and death. He knew as he worked that he was earning his redemption, that when this was over he had but to show this memory to his king and he would be, if not forgiven, then on the path towards it. Whether he wanted that redemption was another question, for another day.

                                                                                                                                              _(there was a peculiar safety in madness and villainy)_

For all his planning and watching, it was pure luck that he appeared in the chamber while Frigga battled her foe. Still cloaked in illusion, he tensely watched her spin and hack at the elf, proud of her ability and the surprise in the elf’s terribly pale eyes at the skill and ferocity of his elegant opponent. But when the creature appeared before them and grasped her roughly, he knew it was nearly time to intervene. He vaguely recognized the magic flowing within and around the beast, a type of suicidal berserker spell long forgotten by nearly all. However, Loki had spent centuries in study and isolation—there were few able to match his knowledge of magic. And unlike Thor, he realized that there were some enemies best left alone rather than met headon. A swing of a hammer, however magical, would not reduce this creature to rubble.

_(he had watched many of Thor’s battles with amusement, recalling with something he refused to label wistfulness, the days he had joined his brother, had spouted the same witty lines between blows)_

Instead he watched uneasily as the ugly brute manhandled the woman in his grasp, plotting a thousand ways to kill it for its impudence but holding back in tense preparation. He watched as she refused to give in to the elf’s demands. And he watched, hands gripped tight and magic gathering around them, as his _mother_ was skewered and tossed to the side carelessly, as he knew she would be. No longer an object of attention for the invaders, she lay bleeding and alone. Loki was at her side in an instant, casting a healing spell, a stasis spell, and finally, a solid illusion to leave behind. Gathering her in his arms, he pointedly did not look at the image of her body, dead and cooling. He ignored the roar of anguish from the newly arrived Thor. Instead he transported them to one of his bolt-holes in the palace and began the work of healing the wound that bled red and insidious black.

                                                                                              _(his magic was truly depleted but he gave all he could spare and then more to her)_

Later that day, he registered Fandral cruelly informing his illusion that, “Frigga is dead.” It burned in his mind, even as he gazed upon the pale form that gave lie to the three words. The day after that, he felt Thor enter the dungeons and returned to his gilded cage in truth. He nearly laughed when Thor demanded he drop his illusion, since he was, for once, truly himself. Instead he cast one, asking his magic to arrange him as he would be if Frigga had passed to the halls of Valhalla. The room changed to a scene of desperate destruction, his hair mussed as if he had been gripping it with enough force to tear it from his head. His clothes were a mess, scrapes covered his hands, and blood was dried on his bare feet—he was the image of a broken son and he acknowledged that yes, this would have been him, pale and devastated and half animal.

_(something in him resents that Thor is not, that his pain is only apparent in the lines of his face and the quiet grief lurking in his eyes)_

He laughed at the ensuing request for help but agreed, amusing himself by transforming turn by turn into various people, including the Captain Thor had battled alongside. Loki knew that the mockery he indulged in would go over his brother’s head, for he had not spent hours glancing into the worlds surrounding Asgard as Loki, the captive Trickster had. He had given the Avengers a greater share of his attention than any beyond his home city, watching with fascination the warriors that had so unexpectedly been both his defeaters and saviors.

_(Stark, he felt firmly, would have been a magnificent companion to his own brand of trickery)_

He is dragged into Thor’s plot, which he unexpectedly approves of, and even lets the warrior operate under the misguided assumption that he had been fooled.

                                                                                                                                          _(impossible when one’s sight reached as far as Loki’s)_

As they fly through the city and crash through the mountain portal, Loki is shaky and pale, his magic running dangerously low. But he aids Thor in his mission, reveling in the trickery they play at and the ensuing battle. When he catches sight of his brother in peril he freezes, seeing his mother in the same creature’s hold and realizing that letting his brother perish was as unacceptable as letting _her_ die. Without thinking, he stabs the monster as it had brutally stabbed his mother days before, satisfaction hot and brief, jarred by an unexpectedly quick retaliation.  

                                                                                                _(the brightness in Thor’s eyes is just as unexpected, as Loki ‘dies’ under his gaze)_


End file.
